LOS ANGELES (AP) – As busy as Cedric the Entertainer is with his sitcom “The Neighborhood” and other projects, he quickly said yes when asked to host his first major awards show.
Then he sought advice on how to handle Sunday’s Emmy ceremony, airing on CBS (8 p.m. EDT).
“Steve Harvey, my good friend who’s hosted a lot of these ‘big nights,’ he had some great tidbits for me,” said the actor-comedian. Others on his call list for trade secrets: Billy Crystal, Anthony Anderson and Chris Rock, all veterans at emceeing Hollywood bashes.
“And if you have a line on Tina Fey, I don’t have her number, but I would love to talk to her,” Cedric said.
He was already aware of one modern pitfall of hosting: Offensive old jokes, like the ones on Twitter that cost Kevin Hart the Oscar emcee gig in 2018.